"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

Coronavirus may be “at the brink” of a global pandemic – Axios

The virus has killed more than 2,000 people and infected more than 75,000 others

The coronavirus outbreak may be “at the brink” of a global pandemic,Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tells Axios.

What’s new:New signspeople are infecting each other in amore sustainable fashionin China, an uptick in confirmed cases inJapanandSingapore, andresearchshowing people without symptoms can infect each other are fueling concern that COVID-19 will develop into a pandemic.

By the numbers:The virus haskilled more than 2,000 peopleand infected more than 75,000 others, mostly in mainland China. Five deaths and more than 800 infections have been confirmed in 28 other nations and territories.

Countries are furiously racing to contain the virus by issuing travel restrictions, imposing quarantines and isolation methods, and tracing contacts of people with known infections.

The World Health Organization has an international team in China, trying to help the country learn more about the virus, while China is trying some experimental treatments.

More than 80% of people who catch the infection experience mild symptoms, 14% have severe disease-like pneumonia and shortness of break, and 5% come down with a critical disease like sepsis, multi-organ failure, and respiratory failure.

About 2% of people infected with the virus die from it — much less than other coronavirus outbreaks,SARS(~14%) andMERS(~35%).

“[T]he risk of death increases the older you are,” noted the WHO, while adding researchers were trying to determine why this is the case. Young children appear not to experience as severe symptoms as older adults.

Yes, but:Fauci said there remain many unknowns — where the virus originated from, how transmissible it is, how deadly it is, and if people without symptoms are infectious.

“I would strongly suspect there are asymptomatic people transmitting [infection], but I don’t think that’s a major driver,” Fauci said.

He adds it’s too early to determine the death rate, as there is not enough data yet.

What they’re saying:“There are these huge looming issues, on whether this can be contained or not. And, if it’s going to spread, are we prepared to respond and mitigate it in our own country and other vulnerable places, particularly Africa?” Stephen Morrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Axios last week.

Tension between economic pressures to re-open the pharmaceutical, auto and aviation factories underpinning global supply chains and markets, and the need to quarantine and control the disease could lead to a “period of stop-go, stop-go” that could worsen the situation, says Morrison.

“There’s a cascade of challenges and unknowns.”

What to watch:Despiteefforts to preparethe American health care system for a pandemic, Morrison said the U.S. is not ready, pointing to the 2017-2018 flu season thatkilled at least 80,000 Americansas an example of when a sudden increase of cases “really overwhelmed the system.”

“We’d be very quickly in trouble” if there was a sudden influx of ill people during a pandemic, Morrison said.

1 thought on “Coronavirus may be “at the brink” of a global pandemic – Axios”

This morning during the drive-time show on Houston’s AM 740 KTRH, there was an interview Daily Caller writer Gordon Chang. Through his observation of this issue, there are a number of things that are really “off” about this. First, because the WHO and CDC have been denied entry to China, the theories that coronavirus came from a lab and that there are exponentially more deaths cannot be proven (or denied). Second, because the Wall Street Journal employees are being expelled, this points to the likelihood of a cover-up. Additionally, since most Chinese “journalists” are actually spies, a reciprocation seems to be what the doctor ordered.